2024-08-16 45 4

Location

Participants

Nadg
The mentor (for some of the way)

Plans

After reading What football will be like in the year 17776, I wanted to take up geohashing for real this time. After checking the next day coordinates online, it turned out there were closer from me than I had ever seen them! I checked the bus schedule and went to bed.

Expedition

1. Ordinary World

15 august, late at night, looking at the next day coordinates out of boredom.

2. Call to adventure

The coordinates are only 10km away from home, that's the closest I've ever seen them. I'm going. I try to bring my roommate with me, it's a geek thing!

3. Refusal of the Call

10AM, 16 of august. He doesn't want to come, he is still too sleepy. I'm going alone.

4. Meeting the Mentor

11AM, I'm at the bus stop. The station looks like it's straight out of Portal. Waiting for the bus I meet an old journalist, and we start chatting. He teaches me everything about how to meet people with and without a suit, and tell me about the time he met Gorbachev (??!!) and how he gave him an article about press freedom (!!!!)

5.Crossing the threshold

We reach the terminus. I step in a medieval village, entirely made from the local stone. Buildings are covered in fossils from the Miocene.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

Today hash is 600m away... as the crows fly. There is a village and a steep slope in the way. The mentor stops at a local restaurant to meet the innkeeper, she offers me a smoothie. I need to use all my might to continue on my way.

7. Approach to the inmost cave

I leave the mentor behind in the village, instead finding a path going up and around the mountain. The path is (not) treacherous, full of (very stable) stones and (well behaved) thorn bushes. I eat blackberries on the way up top, and finally find the inmost cave a 100m before the geohash (a cool hut made from branches and planks)

8. The ordeal

I reach the target field. After a short break in the shade I venture in the unforgiving sun to find the exact coordinates.

9. Reward, Seizing the Sword

After a bit of back and forth, I get the exact position on my GPS! My first geohash!

10. The road back

The road back is going down the hill instead of up, but I'm getting tired. My bad hip is starting to hurt. I unfold my walking cane for the last 300 meters.

11. Resurrection

I stop at the inn to get this smoothie, meeting back with the mentor who is still eating. It's banana-beetroot, a weird mix but surprisingly good. While we chat the innkeeper gives me foccacia with cheese ("on the house" she says), then ice water with mint, then a small watermelon ice cream ("on the house", she repeats). Sitting and eating made me feel much better.

12. Return with the elixir

Before I leave, I buy something more from the inn, feeling a bit bad about having only paid for a smoothie. I go home with a Symple bottle, sparkly water infuse with basil. It looked fun?

Gallery

The ordinary world on adventure day
The call to adventure, c'mon, I have to do this
Refusal of the call (allegory, paint on building, 2024)
Meeting the mentor in the most portal-like station ever
Crossing the threshold, I wasn't kidding about the fossils
Test, allies, ennemies - mostly test and allies tho. Credit: Comptoir Fortunella
The inmost cave, or rather the coolest hut
The ordeal, finding the exact point under the burning sun
Seizing the sword, dropping the bag on the exact spot
The reward, getting my first hash!
The road back, someone has a fake bird on their window
Resurrection, with the power of italian cuisine!
Return with the elixir, a bottle of Symples